Technical skills vital

THE Government will make strategic investments into technical institutions in the country to offer diploma programmes and increase the standard of learning.
This would help to increase the number of qualified technical personnel so they could meet the demand.
National Planning Minister Richard Maru made these remarks to the staff and students of Mt Hagen Technical College last Tuesday.
Maru said during the LNG construction phase, about 18,000 expatriates were hired to work because PNG lacked qualified people.
He said when looking at the needs of the country, the Government was focused on supporting technical colleges to enable them to produce quality technical graduates in sufficient numbers.
“We need to send people overseas and they can work globally so that is why we will look at helping the colleges,” he said.
“Funding support will be offered so our children can be trained to the best standards and meet the job opportunities at mine sites and in other technical areas.
“We must build world class institutions.”
Maru said about 30,000 grade 12s graduated every year but only about 6,000 made their way through the State and private education systems while the rest were left out.
“With the free education policy, we are having around 1. 5 million children in school and that is a burden so we have to try our best to accommodate them,” he said.
“We will be looking at helping technical institutions in the country so they can give back to this nation the best we are expecting.”
Maru said starting next year funding and support would be provided to look at the dormitories and classrooms so that would increase the number of students and improve the standard of learning.